Clubs' huge gambling revenue

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32474, 8 December 1970, Page 1

Clubs' huge gambling revenue

Sporting clubs and organisations in New Zealand, including the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games Committee, must be envious of New South Wales sports clubs with annual incomes of millions of dollars mainly from a game of chance.

The income comes from poker machines “one-arm bandits” and bar profits. One such club in Christchurch could pay for the extensions and roofing of the Centennial Pool within two or three years. The South Sydney Junior Rugby League Club, Ltd, this year had a turnover of i $l2 million, providing an income of $2,354,412 —of which poker machines and bar profits yielded $2,268,101. The club lost $304,206 on diningroom and snack bar business.

In June the club showed a surplus of $555,823 for the year after paying $619,736 to artists and musicians for entertainment, and paying out $105,542 in donations and promotion expenses. Entertainers were brought from the United States and Britain.

The South Sydney Junior Rugby League comprises 20 affiliated. clubs with 4000 playing members. The league club had total assets of $4,758,000 at June 30.

The Canterbury Rugby Football League had total assets of $76,821 at December 31 last, with 13 affiliated clubs and more than 3000 playing members. The South Sydney Junior Rugby League Club, Ltd, was formed 11 years ago, 40 years after the league was I formed. Today it has freehold land and buildings whose value at cost is $2,972,180. The club is a five-storey, modern building in permanent materials, with restaurants, bars, bistros, audi-

torium, swimming pool, gymnasium, indoor bowls, squash courts—and poker machines on every floor. The club, which had 51,197 members last June (compared with 45,734 members in June, 1969) also owns a country lodge, country club, marina, two launches (costing $74,832), bowling greens, and tennis courts.

The Canterbury Rugby Football League, Inc., has a property in Colombo Street and is considering putting a modern building on it. In the week from November 17 to 23 the South Sydney club paid out $102,398 in poker machine jackpots. Jackpots ranged from $220 to $420 for 20c, from $6O to $lBO for 10c, and from $35 to $BO for sc.

The South Sydney club has 32 clubs within the club, [including art, bridge, basketball, bowls, canasta, cricket, camera, darts, fishing, golf, karate, dance, snooker, swimming, squash, sailing, touch football and theatre; a chess J

group, French classes and gymnasium classes. Future plans of the South Sydney club include a convalescent hospital and the formation of a co-operative for the financing of homes for members —the hospital charges to be at a nominal level, and the home finance to be at a competitive level. In the last financial year, the South Sydney club assisted 64 organisations, including sports clubs, youth clubs, handicapped persons’ associations, missions, church clubs, scouts, meals on wheels. .... The club also made substantial donations to the Australian Commonwealth Games Fund and the British Commonwealth Games Association.

Poker machines are legal in clubs in New South Wales, but not in hotels. They are illegal in New Zealand. The South Sydney Junior Rugby League Club, Ltd, pays income tax, payroll tax, poker machine tax, and

L rates. The sum of $109,753 is the provisional total taxes i and rates estimate for the • current financial year. i The tax revenue from the ! South Sydney Club is ! $71,795. The club even gave I a donation to the Randwick I Municipality this year.